


Cold Comfort

by Bit_Not_Good



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Comfort Sex, M/M, Mourning, One-Sided Relationship, Oral Sex, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 09:22:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6000691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bit_Not_Good/pseuds/Bit_Not_Good
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of the Last of the Time Lords, the Doctor has some trouble sleeping. Jack helps comfort him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold Comfort

**Author's Note:**

  * For [janto321 (FaceofMer)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FaceofMer/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy this fic. However, if you are not in the mood for angst, unrequited love, or sex where one person is not really interested, I suggest you wait till another day to read this one. I want you to enjoy today, because you're a wonderful person and I'm lucky to know you.

It wasn’t the worst thing either of them had experienced, the Year That Never Was.  But it was, perhaps, the worst thing that Martha had ever experienced. She didn’t say as much to Jack, but he could see in her eyes how haunted it had left her. The deaths she had seen, the tragedies she passed as she travelled the world. That final night on the Valiant, she didn’t leave her family’s sides even to sleep. The four of them shared the barracks, one last night before the Valiant landed.

They spent that night in the TARDIS. Jack apologized for the bullets which pocked the console, but the Doctor ignored his words until eventually he stopped saying them. When he realized he couldn’t fix them by hand, the Doctor flicked a few switches and ushered Jack out, locking the door behind them. There was a grinding, groaning sound, and when he opened the door again it was as if the TARDIS had never been a paradox machine at all- though it still grumbled and clattered when Jack entered, unhappy with the wrongness of him. It made him nervous to hear it.

Once plans had been made to land the next night, he left them. Not for long, perhaps a few minutes, but it made Jack’s stomach twist. What if he left Jack alone, like he had on Platform Five? But he didn’t. When he returned, his coat smelled of smoke and charred meat. He had taken the Master’s body with him and returned looking grim, and Jack could swear he caught a whiff of lighter fluid on the Doctor’s hands. But the Doctor didn’t say anything about where he’d been, and Jack didn’t ask.

Jack watched the Doctor fiddle with the controls for a minute in silence. “You loved him,” he said at last. It wasn’t a question.

The Doctor looked up, startled, and Jack could see the sadness in his eyes. “Yes.” He looked down again, caressed the coral supporting the console. “He was… he was my friend. Long ago.” He swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing, then shook his head. “It’s been years. Centuries, really. So long since we’ve been friends.” But his death still hurt. Jack could see it, in the lines of his shoulders and the bow of his head, the sorrow at losing him at last.

“You’re alone now.” He said it quietly, moving to stand beside him. After a moment, he set a hand on the Doctor’s shoulder, feeling his dual hearts beat through his jacket. Feeling them break.

“Yeah.” The Doctor shook his head, forcing a smile onto his face. “You were telling me-“

“Don’t.” The harsh tone surprises both of them, but Jack can see the pain written all over the Doctor, his friend. He’s wanted to be here, on the TARDIS again, for so long. “Don’t brush this off. He was important to you, and now he’s gone.” Jack swallowed, continued more quietly. “You’re allowed to miss him.

***

The Doctor has a bedroom. At some point, as the evening wore on, he disappeared into it. Jack hadn’t expected that. Somehow, he’d thought the Doctor would be like him, wouldn’t need sleep. But no, the Doctor can be hurt. He can be killed, he can stay dead. And, apparently, after a year of sadness and pain, after the loss of his oldest friend, he can be exhausted.

Jack waits for him to stop moving around. He can hear him from the console room, he’s barely down the hallway, but the Doctor shuffles around into the wee hours. Eventually, Jack wonders if he can’t sleep and knocks on his door.

The man is still in his clothes from earlier in the day, sans coat, when he opens the door. His bedroom is bare save a bed and a dresser, and he looks ill at ease in it. He must not have slept in ages, because he looks awful, haggard and pale, and Jack can tell in an instant that he has been crying. And then he steps forward, into his space, and kisses him.

This body is different. The first time he kissed the Doctor, his skin had been rough with barely-there stubble. Now, his lips are thin and soft, and perhaps he’s just that broken, but he doesn’t tell Jack to stop, doesn’t push him away.

“Let me take care of you,” Jack asks, stroking behind the Doctor’s ear where his hair is baby-fine and soft. “Please.” The Doctor opens his mouth, swallows, nods.

“Okay.”

Jack crowds him back towards the bed, a small twin pressed against the wall, and the Doctor lets him, sitting quietly on the edge as Jack kneels to remove his shoes and socks. He sets them aside and then leans up to slip the brown suit jacket off his shoulders. The Doctor shivers without it, wrapping his arms around himself for a moment. Jack can definitely smell the lighter fluid now- he must have spilt it on his sleeves by accident.

“Hey.” Jack runs his hands down his shoulders and arms, rubs gently to warm him. The Doctor looks up again, and now he wears his sorrow on his face, his loneliness evident on his face, and Jack realizes that one day, he will look like that too. He looks away, then back, focusing on undoing his tie, unbuttoning the Doctor’s shirt. Then he tugs him up and unbuttons his trousers, letting them fall and taking the Doctor’s hand as he steps out of them.

Standing like this, undressed, wearing only a vest and pants, the Doctor looks more vulnerable than Jack could have imagined. He looks at the Doctor for a long moment, then kisses him again, hands settling hesitantly on his shoulders. And then there is water against his lips, salty, and he pulls back a bit and realizes there are tears trailing down the Doctor’s cheeks.

“I loved him,” he manages, face twisting, and Jack exhales and wipes his right eye with his thumb.

“I know.” Though Jack can’t imagine what the Doctor ever saw in the psychopath who killed humanity, he’s dead now, even if it’s not what the Doctor wanted. He’s gone. “You’re not alone.”

The stricken look the Doctor gives him is awful, bewildered and hurting, and he kisses him once more. This time the man kisses back, opening his lips just a little, tilting his head up to meet Jack’s lips.

When Jack backs him against the bed this time, he sits with a bounce and watches as Jack falls to his knees before him. “Can I?” And the nod from the Doctor is enough, and then Jack is slipping his hand into the Doctor’s pants, grasping his cock, and even though he’s still wearing a vest, and tears still stain his cheeks, Jack can’t believe how beautiful he looks.

He strokes him to hardness inside his pants, the Doctor’s hips shifting minutely as he bites his lip. And then he tugs his pants down, leaving him exposed, pale cock springing free to bob upright. “I love you, you know,” Jack murmurs, eyes watching as precum beads at the tip. “And I know you don’t feel the same way.” He licks his lips and presses a kiss to the Doctor’s tip. “It’s okay,” he adds, as the Doctor opens his mouth, and then he swallows him down in one go.

It must have been centuries since the Doctor was touched like that, maybe longer, because his hips buck into Jack’s mouth almost of their own accord, and surprised whimpers spill from his lips. Jack chuckles, and the Doctor groans. “Please,” he gasps, voice breaking, and Jack can’t help but marvel at his voice, the way he stutters over the word in shock. “P-please, god, please more,” and Jack bobs his head and is met with more of those gorgeous sounds.

With one hand Jack reaches down to fondle his balls, and the Doctor tosses his head back with a long groan. Jack sucks and licks, swirling his tongue over his glans before pressing down to take him all once more. The head bumps the back of his throat and Jack can smell the musk, breathes in the intoxicating scent of Time Lord pheromones before giving a long, slow suck.

“My hearts are going to beat out of my chest,” the Doctor mutters, one long hand finding its way into Jack’s hair. Jack makes a grumbling sound and pulls off enough to suckle the tip because honestly, if the man is still coherent he’s not doing his job well enough.

It doesn’t take long before the Doctor is gasping, fingers tugging at Jack’s hair, and Jack reaches up with his free hand to tweak his nipple through his vest. And then the Doctor’s hips buck once, twice, and he is spilling down Jack’s throat, and Jack swallows, and swallows, and swallows, and his throat burns but he ignores that as he sits back at last and looks up at the Doctor, who is flushed and trembling in the aftermath of his orgasm.

Jack stands and leans down to wrap his arms around him, holding him until the shudders subside and his heart rate is closer to calm. Then he quickly strips down to his vest and pants and climbs onto the bed with him, hugs him from behind and guides him down to the pillow, tugs a blanket over them. “Sleep now,” he murmurs, kissing the man’s neck, and he knows this will never happen again, so he drinks it in, stays pressed against the Doctor until his breath slows and he drops off into sleep. He stays there for hours.

***

The Doctor wakes up alone, surprised at the gentle jolt as the Valiant touches ground for the first time in a year. When he meets Jack in the control room, it’s as if the night before never happened, and then Jack asks to be taken to Cardiff, and the Doctor nods and agrees just as Martha opens the door. She needs flowers. Apparently, they’re owed to someone she met during the Year That Never Was.

Jack knows how it is with such things. You do what you can for the people who have no choice.

The Doctor takes them to get flowers.


End file.
